When Google alone doesn’t cut it: help us tackle tough sync scenarios

Ars wants to know: What are you using to share your data between devices?

Syncing data between computers, smartphones, tablets, and other devices has gotten much easier since the days of manually syncing a PC and a Palm Pilot via an infrared port or a USB cable. Freely available cloud services that store your data centrally, something that used to be the purview of expensive solutions like Exchange servers that were out of reach for home users, have now become much more affordable and easier to use. For a one-man army or a one-woman business, things are great. But when you start wanting to share things, it gets messy, fast.

Sharing all of that data with another person effectively doubles the complexity, because another person introduces both their own data, and their own computing and mobile platform usage. Often, services that are good at sharing some things in one context aren't so good at sharing other things in another context. In a discussion about setting up a "nerve center" for a family or even a small office, we were unable to come up with a single inexpensive solution that would banish all of our sharing-related woes.

We quickly brought up and dismissed some obvious suggestions—Google was mentioned first and most often, but we quickly found that while it was quite useful for syncing calendars, contacts, and other data, it doesn't support synchronization of tasks lists. Exchange is attractive, but it's also relatively expensive, and even it does not sync tasks with Mac users who aren't on Outlook, for example.

Here's where you come in. We would like you, our knowledgeable and multi-talented readership, to tell us what you're using to share your data between all of your devices at home and at work, and what you've done to share these things with others:

Calendars, for arranging meetings and other appointments. Users must be able to both view and edit other users' calendars when given the correct permissions. Extra bonus points for a solution that establishes an independent calendar for group activity.

A shared tasks list. Users must be able to create new tasks, mark old ones as complete, and share these changes with other users. Bonus points for being able to assign tasks to others.

Other information, like files, documents, and contacts. Again, all users should be able to both view and edit these items when given the proper permissions. This is actually the easiest of the three tasks, but we'll make it a little harder by asking you to recommend a collaborative sharing solution, like a Wiki.

Complicated or convoluted solutions are acceptable, but we're particularly interested in solutions that solve these problems while spending the least possible amount of time, money, and effort—things you could explain to less-technical friends and family without breaking their brains. Consider both homogeneous environments (all iPhone and Mac users, for instance) and setups with a variety of different smartphones, tablets, PCs, and Macs in play. An ideal solution would have good cross-platform support in addition to fulfilling all of our other criteria.

Here are some different hypothetical use cases that hopefully draw out the kinds of complexity you run into when searching for a solution:

A married couple keeping track of kids' soccer practices, music lessons, and maintaining a family address book. It's important that each person knows where the other is and what he or she is doing, and that shared tasks like picking up kids or paying bills on time don't slip through the cracks.

A four-person traveling sales team. Since these people are all on the road, quick and seamless syncing between mobile devices is essential. Assume that no one in this group will have access to a desktop or laptop during the day—they'll have to view and edit all of the shared resources from a phone or tablet.

A small office of a few dozen people. Calendars are used to invite users to meetings and keep track of workers' time. Managers have assistants who need to be able to view and edit their calendars and task lists. Since this is a larger group of people, the ability to easily manage different access permissions for different groups of people is key.

After reading through your answers, we'll take your best answers, combine them with our own research, and publish a thorough guide to help you and yours share your data more easily. The best contributors will get a complimentary subscription to Ars Technica. Sound good? Get to it!

Andrew Cunningham
Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue. Twitter@AndrewWrites